It was a beautiful day today, and I decided to take advantage of the weather by heading over to MIT. I live in Cambridge, MA, the same town where MIT is located, but in all honesty, to me MIT feels like a different planet. And I mean that in a good way. MIT is definitely a one of a kind sort of place. Walking through the campus today, I saw more handmade bicycle contraptions than I’ve ever seen in my life, at least a half dozen students with pink stripes through their hair, a student with a handmade backpack hat (basically a hat on which a backpack was attached), a random trampoline, poprock cannoli (which were delicious), and all other sorts of other quirky things.
Clik here to view.
Bike contraption 1
Clik here to view.
Bike contraption 2
And although I appreciate all of these quirky things in and of themselves, I think behind all of them is a message this campus is sending– we want to invent and discover new things and change the world. You can feel an entrepreneurial energy on this campus, and for a practical-minded student with a passion for changing the world through science and technology, I couldn’t imagine a better place than MIT.
Overview:
Clik here to view.
MIT Campus
MIT is a private university located about five minutes from Downtown Boston in Cambridge, MA. William Rogers founded MIT in 1861 during the heart of the industrial revolution. Inspired by the incredible innovations in technology around him, Rogers wanted to create a forward-thinking university drastically different than the prominent universities of his day which he felt focused more on glorifying the past. MIT’s motto, mens et manus, meaning “mind in hand” perfectly describes MIT’s philosophy. MIT’s focus and pride is in producing students that will become scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs who will help define our future.
Academics:
Every MIT student I’ve ever met has said it has been an intense academic experience All MIT students are required to take a mandatory curriculum, called General Institute Requirements (GIRs). This curriculum includes a freshmen science core, where all students are required to take course in biology, calculus, chemistry, and physics. The GIRs also include a communication requirement where students select two courses from a wide variety of classes within the arts, social sciences, & humanities and two courses within their majors that have particularly strong emphasis on writing and oral communication. In addition, MIT students must take a minimum of 8 courses in the arts, humanities and social sciences by the time they graduate (two of which are satisfied with the communication requirements), although students can choose these courses from the based on their personal preferences. Other requirements include taking two courses from a list of approved Restricted Electives in Science and Technology (example courses include Fundamentals of Energy in Buildings, Genetics, and The Early Universe), a lab requirement, and a physical education requirement where students must pass a swim test and take four PE classes (example courses include SCUBA, ballroom dance, skating, and stress management).
Although intense, MIT does its best to ease its students into the rigor of its academics and makes a real effort to foster a collaborative environment. First semester freshmen year, all classes are graded Pass/no record. Second semester, classes are graded A/B/C/no record before earning regular grades the following three years.
Most classes use problem sets as the main assignments. Students form their own study groups and are encouraged to form “pset parties” to complete the assignments together. In order to encourage this sort of collaborative work environment, MIT does not cap the number of each grade given out and does not rank its students.
Students choose their major at the end of their freshmen year. Each major is a part of one of five schools. The most popular school is the School of Engineering. The second most popular is the School of Science. Second majors in business at the Sloan School of Management are also common. Sloan is a very entrepreneurial business school and many students create businesses out of their science and engineering work . Sloan is one of the only top business schools in the country that allows undergrads to register for their courses. There are also students that choose majors from the School of Architecture and Urban Planning and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences which many call the hidden gem of MIT.
Although MIT offers thousands in a wide variety of fields, if there is something not offered that you want to take, you can cross-register at Harvard. Just a few miles down the road, students can easily pop back and forth between classes if they want to register for a Harvard literature class, a history seminar, or anything else.
Campus:
MIT’s campus is located directly across the river from downtown and down the road from Harvard in Cambridge, MA, one of the most quirky, interesting, and dynamic college towns in the country (as a resident myself, I’m biased, but many would agree). MIT’s campus sits right on the river along for a beautiful waterfront quad and views of the city skyline. The architecture is strikingly diverse, a combination of classical limestone buildings in the center of the campus surrounded by industrial buildings that could be mistaken as factories, concrete towers, and quirky (and often stunning or at least controversial) modern architecture such as the Frank Gehry Stata Center and Simmons Hall (which to me looks like a game of Tetris).
Clik here to view.
MIT buildings are connected by long hallways like this one
Although some buildings have names, all buildings have numbers, which is the way many students refer to them. Honestly, I have no idea how they keep track of the difference between building 24 and 36, but it must be the way the MIT mind is wired that makes this easier for them than for me.
One of the big advantages of the MIT campus in the winter is that many of the buildings are connected, so you can say get from building 4 to building 10 without ever having to go outside.
Clik here to view.
MIT students enjoying a school-sponsored spring picnic
MIT is an urban integrated campus. Although there are plenty of collegiate-feeling spaces across the campus, including quads, courtyards, and common spaces, you don’t forget you are in a real city. On the east side, you find Kendall Square, a neighborhood which houses many big-name startups, biotech, and tech giants. Akamai, Genzyme, HubSpot, Google, Novartis, and Microsoft are just a few of the businesses you’ll find in the area (of course many of the employees at all of these are graduates of MIT). Between these powerhouse businesses, there are a number of coffee shops and restaurants, and more are popping up every year as Kendall is starting to become a food destination for people throughout the city of Boston. You will also find the Kendall Square Cinema, one of the best movie theater’s in the area, which shows both mainstream and independent films and a redline T stop (Boston’s public transportation system) which will connect you to downtown Boston in 5 minutes.
Clik here to view.
Frank Gehry’s Stata Center
Just a short walk from the west side of campus, you can walk across the bridge to the Back Bay and Newbury St., one of Boston’s premier shopping district, and to Central Square, the center of Cambridge’s nightlife scene with plenty of bars, coffee shops, restaurants, several theaters, three grocery stores, and some of the best live music in the city.
Residential Life:
With over 90% of students living on campus, MIT has a very active residential community. Campus housing includes 12 dorms, fraternities and sororities, and independent living groups. Each of the the dorms has its own personality and students have fundamentally different residential experiences depending on where they live. Some of the dorms have dining halls attached, others have dorm kitchens. Some are in beautiful old buildings with high ceilings, hardwood floors, and filled with architectural details, and others are designed so that your room might have a randomly curved wall and 9 tiny windows (i.e. Simmons Hall).
Clik here to view.
Simmon’s Hall
Being MIT, many of the dorms have quirky features, many of which have been implemented by students over the years. In one, students installed an emergency pizza button, a pizza-shaped button on the wall that when press automatically orders a pizza from a local pizza place that is delivered within the hour. In Simmons, students changed their common room into a giant ball pit similar to what McDonald’s had in many of their locations in the 1990s. Walking around campus, I saw a giant trampoline in front of one dorm. And just now reading about East Campus, an MIT living community with the motto “The weak shall be eaten”, I found the following line on their website, “If you’re into carpenting, you can also build a loft to replace your bed and add some space to your room.” That is a first.
Clik here to view.
Do you see the giant trampoline propped up against this dorm?
Extracurriculars:
MIT’s extracurricular scene is a critical part of student life. There are over 400 student groups on campus including lots of music opportunities, dance, theater, student newspaper, and a very vibrant athletic scene (78% of students participate in sports). Intramural and club sports range from A-D level, A being advanced, and D for people trying something new out for the first time. There are a total of over 1,000 sports teams on campus. MIT also has a handful of weird MIT sports such as MIT underwater hockey where players where scuba gear and play hockey with weighted pucks at the bottom of a pool. Other students attempt to ear a pirate license by passing sailing, fencing, pistols, and rifalry. The Laboratory for Chocolate Science is a popular club devoted to using chemistry to make perfect chocolate and appreciating it in many forms. They offer chocolate truffle making sessions, lectures on different chocolate-related topics, and they order and distribute over 500lb of chocolate each year throughout the campus.
Clik here to view.
Poster for an MIT A Cappella Concert
One of the most popular activities on campus is undergraduate research. 80% of undergraduates participate in the undergraduate research program (known as UROP) sometime during their four years at MIT. UROP allows students to do research in the labs of some of MIT’s most prominent faculty in a wide variety of fields either for course credit or for pay.
International opportunities are also plentiful. The IROP program is the international version of UROP which allows students to do research in an international setting over the summer. Examples of opportunities offered through IROP include studying particle physics in Geneva, Switzerland and biological engineering research at a research institute in Thailand. MIT will help eligible students fund these experiences.
Clik here to view.
Poster for a Yoga Dance Party
MISTI is an internationally-focused internship program where students pairs students with paid international internship opportunities in 17 countries.
D-Lab is an academic program where students can choose from a wide variety of course that are designed to bring interdisciplinary students together to solve a wide variety of problems in different countries. At the end of these classes during January, student travel to these countries to try to implement the solutions they developed in these classes.
Clik here to view.
Poster for an MIT Anime event
There is also a vibrant arts scene. 80% of the students who arrive at MIT have extensive experience with the arts (most often music) and many of these students continue to be involved once they arrive on campus. There are tons of performing ensembles from A Cappella groups like the MIT Logarhythms, a Balinese gamelan, a handbell ensemble, a guild of bellringers (apparently that is different than handbells) to more traditional orchestral ensembles. There are also six theater groups, seven dance groups, several comedy troupes, and an MIT art gallery and museum.
Clik here to view.
Kresge Auditorium – where many of the campus musical performances are held
For students interested in entrepreneurship, MIT has an active entrepreneurial culture. The Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship allows students to meet with mentors to help with students develop their ventures. And the 100K Entrepreneurship Competition not only awards over $350K in prizes each year to student enterprises but helps aspiring entrepreneurs by hosting forums featuring successful entrepreneurs and helping student entrepreneurs find mentors.
And of course, in addition to all of these things, many students participate in campus life by orchestrating a campus hack, or prank, during their time at MIT. MIT students are proud of some of the creative hacks their fellow students have created over the years. Some of the most famous have included launching an MIT weather balloon onto the football field during a Harvard-Yale football game and putting a flashing police car on the Great Dome in the center of the MIT campus. Using science, technology, and creativity to pull off a hack is considered a badge of honor at MIT.
Financial Aid
MIT is a need-blind school for both international and domestic students. MIT does not offer merit scholarships, but it commits to meeting 100% of demonstrated need for both domestic and international students (one of only seven schools in the country that is need-blind and meets full need for international students). The average MIT grant is 32K although packages vary from offering students work-study to full tuition. Given that MIT’s financial aid package does include some parental contribution which parents may or may not decide to contribute, 40% of students still do take out student loans during their time at MIT. That said, the average loan over four years is $18,000 making it less than the national average.
Admissions
MIT is one of the most competitive schools in the country. For this year’s freshmen class, MIT admitted 8.9% of students. MIT has some of the most transparent admissions statistics of any top university in the country. They publish detailed of applicant and admitted student scores by SAT subject and detailed class profile on their admissions website.
MIT offers two cycles of admission: early action and regular action. The early action program is non-binding and non-exclusive. You can apply to as many other schools early as you want provided their early admissions cycle is also non-exclusive. Basically, the advantage of applying during this cycle is that you get your decision earlier than if you were to wait for the regular pool. That said, the majority of students apply during the regular action cycle which has a deadline of January 1st.
Academically, MIT will be looking to make sure you are academically prepared to handle the coursework. They will also consider whether you challenged yourself by taking some of the most challenging courses at your high school and studying a wide variety of subjects. They will also want to make sure that you took rigorous classes in math, science, and the subjects that you say interest you.
MIT will also look at your extracurricular activities. They value depth over breadth so they would prefer that you’ve attained positions of leadership or won awards in a few activities than signed up for 50 clubs. The space on the application they give you to list extracurricular activities on the application is relatively short for this reason. They want you to write what you care about most.
MIT is one of the few schools that still does not use the common application. They have their own application that requires students two do five short-answer questions of about 100-250 words instead of the traditional college essay of 500-1000. The goal is to get a sense of your personality and to help them evaluate if you are a “match” for the school (here is what the MIT admissions blog says they are looking for). The questions are open. They ask you what you do for fun (and you should answer honestly and not say something ridiculous and pretentious like “reread my old calculus books”). They ask you about what you want to study, about the world you come from, about challenges you’ve faced, etc. The focus is on getting to know you and not your writing skills.
The total application package will include the following components:
Short biographical section
Transcripts
SAT, ACT, or TOEFL (yes if you are a non-native English speaker you can submit the TOEFL instead of the SATs)
2 subject tests (one in math and the other in science)
Application has 5 short answer questions instead of the typical essay. The purpose is to get to know you.
List of activities
3 recs. One from a science teacher, one a hunanities teacher, and one from a counselor.
In addition, an interview is required for all domestic students. Some international students will be assigned to one as well but it is not available in all areas. During the interview process, MIT will assign an alumni interviewer to each applicant, and it is the applicant’s responsibility to reach to the interviewer to set up a meeting (not the other way around like at many other schools). Part of the process requires applicants to show they have the initiative to contact interviewer themselves.
Overall, the key message from the MIT admissions office is that it is a holistic admissions process — it is a human-centered evaluation process and there is no formula to get in. The admissions officers read every piece of the application. They try to get to know who each person is. What are you going to bring to MIT? Are you a good fit for the MIT culture? Do you want to solve big problems? Are you a nice person? Do you have an appreciation for math, science and technology? These are the questions they debate as they talk through each application during their committee meetings. And while we will never know the intricacies of each of those debates, MIT has given us some of the best access to the inside of the admissions officers’ minds than almost any school around with their admissions blog, which features posts on a variety of admissions topics written by MIT admissions officers and current & former students and which has now been copied by a handful of other schools.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Final Word
For a technically-minded but creative student with an appreciation for quirkiness, MIT is an ideal place. MIT attracts some of the best faculty in their fields, provides students with ample opportunities to work on cutting-edge projects in science and technology, and happens to be located in one of the best (if not the best) college towns in the world. Although academically most students would agree MIT requires a rigorous curriculum, the academic preparation students gain at MIT means that countless students graduate to become the leaders in their fields in science, technology, and business. And beyond those fields, MIT does make a significant effort to build up its departments in the social sciences, humanities, and arts (and its relationship with Harvard down the road doesn’t hurt either) to make sure students have the opportunity to gain exposure to a wide variety of fields and be able to pursue their interests outside of the science and tech core of the school. At its core, MIT is a vibrant community of visionaries who are there because they want to create something new for the world. And if you want to be surrounded by people building technology to make a walking house (yes I met someone there doing that) or a drivable sofa (an MIT legend), or a giant wooden roller coaster in front of the dorm (also happened), and you want to be around people who appreciate your similarly absurd (or brilliant?) but creative ideas, MIT is the place.
Clik here to view.
Great Dome
The post Profile: MIT appeared first on The College Matchmaker.